As I expected, many really pertinent advantages of each system have been posted, some of which I had never thought of. For those who might have misinterpreted, I don’t intend to switch from what I have now, which is the Canon 5Dii for every day, and sport/action; and my Olympus OM-D system for lightweight, compact carry travel. My curiosity was more about the full frame mirrorless that would be the “next gen” for my Canon equipment. Thank you everyone. JimR.

To Everyone who has responded, thank you. You have offered some great perspectives and insights, and in a few, some spots of humor. Thank you. I think the note by bleirer that (in the case of Canon) all your EF lenses can be used going forward with an adapter, is a consideration to keep in mind whenever the time comes. I recall the pain of giving up on all the FD and FL lenses when I converted to digital. But the comments from everyone are appreciated, and again, thank you. JimR

Hello Everyone. I’ve been following posts daily for several years now, and this forum is a great place to learn, both from the narrative posts and the photos. I follow with interest the many posts on switching to mirrorless cameras. My question is, why do so many see this as a step up? I for one have a Canon full frame DLSR, and an Olympus OM-D (which is essentially a mirrorless camera). I am not seeing a good reason, an advantage, to even consider going into the Canon FF mirrorless world, with the need for all new lenses and accessories. As of now, I use the Canon equipment for trips by car where I can bring what I need, since size and weight are factors. And I use the Olympus OM-D system for trips by air, since I can fit two bodies, three lenses, and accessories, all into one “normal” size over the shoulder messenger bag. I see and understand the differences between the mirrorless Olympus body and the SLR body of the Canon, but beyond that, why push to “upgrade” to full frame mirrorless. I would be most interested in your views on this. Thanks much. JimR

Very nice photos. I’ve been following your posts, and all are very well done. I was wondering, in London, did you find the bronze full size statue of Churchill and FDR sitting on a bench? JimR

Very nice, Bob. Where & what is it? JimR

Hi RG. Could you post the before and after? I’ve done some haze removal also and it has been mostly better.

Thanks. I was not sure. I have that one and it works great - extends my 70-200 to nearly 300 mm. JimR

What is the 1.4 iii? Thanks.

Same issue, two years ago. Decided on the Olympus PenF with the 14-150 zoom, which in 35mm would be about 28 to 300 mm. Plus which they make an inexpensive “pancake” lens which, when mounted, lets the PenF look like a point and shoot - not so obvious. That amount of gear can actually fit in your pockets or in a small over the shoulder bag. Used it again on two European getaways in 2019, and it has been perfect, with high quality photos. By the way, I bought all my gear used, which really brought down the cost. Hope you find what you need! JimR

Beautiful work. Is the third one the church at the point of the Portovenere peninsula? JimR

When you read the listings for the Nikon ES-2, it is designed to be used with the D850, which I do not have. But if you have the D850, you have two advantages. With the correct lens as recommended by Nikon, you will have optical compatibility. (I had to try out many combinations of camera body and lens.). Also apparently the D850 has a built in mechanism to “invert” negatives to positive images. I do that with PS since I’m not using Nikon equipment other than the ES-2. Because different films had different chemistry requirements to develop, the color may need to be adjusted manually after you “invert” with PS.

As to the suggestion on an Epson scanner, as I mention in the original post, my scanner will not “focus” each slide, so that some slides are scanned quite well, but maybe half of them are not in focus. With the autofocus feature in the camera, each slide is in as good a focus as you can get. Plus which, we already have camera gear and lenses, and for a very modest investment (for me the ES-2 was $99 at my local camera shop) you can do this. So for me, I will no longer use my slide scanner/negative scanner, as the optical method is so much better as described initially. I’m very grateful to the Australian UHH post that introduced me to this fast, high quality way to retrieve all my old slides. Thanks to all for great contributions to this post. JimR

When you read the listings for the Nikon ES-2, it is designed to be used with the D850, which I do not have. But if you have the D850, you have two advantages. With the correct lens as recommended by Nikon, you will have optical compatibility. (I had to try out many combinations of camera body and lens.). Also apparently the D850 has a built in mechanism to “invert” negatives to positive images. I do that with PS since I’m not using Nikon equipment other than the ES-2. Because different films had different chemistry requirements to develop, the color may need to be adjusted manually after you “invert” with PS.

As to the suggestion on an Epson scanner, as I mention in the original post, my scanner will not “focus” each slide, so that some slides are scanned quite well, but maybe half of them are not in focus. With the autofocus feature in the camera, each slide is in as good a focus as you can get. Plus which, we already have camera gear and lenses, and for a very modest investment (for me the ES-2 was $99 at my local camera shop) you can do this. So for me, I will no longer use my slide scanner/negative scanner, as the optical method is so much better as described initially. I’m very grateful to the Australian UHH post that introduced me to this fast, high quality way to retrieve all my old slides. Thanks to all for great contributions to this post. JimR

Reply to Retired CPO. Sorry, I did not know the dimensions of a 120 slide. You might want to google the Emora slide duplicating kit. When I did that just now, the Emora comes up, as does the Nikon ES-1. It might be that they could take both a 35mm slide, plus the 120 format you have. Hope you can find something that works on the 120. And you already have read how well the ES-2 works with 35mm slides. By the way, the ES-2 also comes with a negative holder, and PS has an “invert” feature which will convert the negative to a positive. But remember from film days, each film has its own chemistry, so with negatives, I need to adjust color manually, even after the “invert” feature converts it to a positive image. Hope you can find what you need. JimR

If I’m not mistaken, the 120 format was still a 2in by 2in slide, true? If that’s what you are talking about, the Nikon ES-2 will handle it. But the slide holder that you use with the ES-2 has an opening with the dimensions of a 35 mm slide, obviously, not square like that 120 format, so you will need to crop. You will be somewhat limited. I understand the older Nikon ES-1 does not have a slide holder, but rather you just put the slide in. I did see some of the ES-1 on eBay. I think you would need to experiment with the lens, or lenses, you would plan to use. Hope you can find a way to make it work. JimR.

I have been replying to posts about copying slides (and/or negatives). It started when I read a post from a UHH Person in Australia who said he uses an Emora slide copy device, mounted on his camera lens. It’s a screw into the filter thread device. So I did some research and found that Nikon makes one dedicated to the D850. I’m not a Nikon guy any more, so I did a bit of trial and error. For starters, using my small light box, put some slides on it and tried my Canon lenses (on a 5Dii, and also with adapter, on my Olympus PEN-F), and then my Olympus lenses, to see “what do I already have that will focus close?” I found that the best lens of what I have available is my Olympus M.Zuiko 12-40mm f/2.8 MFT lens. For those not familiar, this is equal to a full frame 24-80mm lens. On the front end, I mount a +10 diopter and a +4 diopter (total of +14 diopter) Hoya quality macro adapter lens. At my local camera shop, I bought the Nikon ES-2 kit, which includes step down ring and a slide copier with a fitting that holds two slides. It can telescope a bit to help you with focus. Anyway, with my setup on my PEN-F, I can zoom to fill the digital viewfinder, and the auto focus works almost all the time. The ratio of the slide dimension is not exact to the dimension of the sensor in the camera, so I can crop using the zoom of the lens, or later in PS. I mount the entire thing on my tripod and point it out the window for natural light - the light box gives the slides a color cast that is too warm (sort of orange) but the natural light works better. The beauty is that the camera adjusts for the light, and I can use the built-in HDR in the Olympus camera when needed. I have thus recovered slides that were totally useless with the scanner because of too wide a range of light, or just too underexposed. And also, remember when you had a slide projector, either you needed to focus each slide manually or your Kodak Carousel had an auto-focus, because the film is not always the same distance from the lens in the projector. So, with the camera autofocus, each slide is as sharp as it can possibly be. I have gone back and redone numerous scanned slides that were out of focus, because the scanner does not have a focus mechanism. And all my setup (given that I have the lens and camera) was under $200. And it’s fast. Finally, between the camera and the ES-2 slide copier, it is all “fixed” so nothing moves. I mount on the tripod and use a cable release just to be sure I don’t introduce vibration. If anyone has further questions, please let me know. Happy to offer the benefit of my hours of scanning with a scanner, and now just beginning to recover the poorly scanned slides with this rig. Best regards, JimR.